The relative contribution of secondary ice processes in Alpine mixed-phase clouds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paraskevi Georgakaki ◽  
Georgia Sotiropoulou ◽  
Etienne Vignon ◽  
Alexis Berne ◽  
Athanasios Nenes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Supercooled Liquid ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Swiss Alps ◽  
Blowing Snow ◽  
Temperature Range ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

<p>In-situ observations of mixed-phase clouds (MPCs) forming over mountain tops regularly reveal that ice crystal number concentrations (ICNCs) are orders of magnitude higher than ice-nucleating particle concentrations. This discrepancy has often been attributed to the influence of surface processes such as blowing snow and airborne hoar frost. Ιn-cloud secondary ice production (SIP) processes may also explain this discrepancy, but their contribution has received less attention.<br>Here we explore the potential role of SIP processes on orographic MPCs observed during the Cloud and Aerosol Characterization Experiment (CLACE) 2014 campaign at the mountain-top site of Jungfraujoch in the Swiss Alps using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). The Hallett-Mossop (H-M) mechanism, included in the default version of the Morrison scheme in WRF, is ruled out since the simulated clouds were outside the active temperature range for this process. This study investigates if the implementation of two additional SIP mechanisms in WRF, namely collisional break-up (BR) between ice hydrometeors and frozen droplet shattering (DS), can bridge the gap between observed and modeled ICNCs. DS is inefficient in the examined conditions due to a lack of sufficiently large raindrops to trigger this process. The BR mechanism is likely important in Alpine MPCs, but the process is activated only within seeder-feeder situations, when precipitation particles are seeding the low-level MPCs inducing their glaciation. At times when a cloud exists near the ground, blowing snow ice particles may be mixed among supercooled liquid droplets and thus contribute significantly to ice growth, but they cannot account for the observed ICNCs. Our findings indicate that outside the H-M temperature range, ice-seeding and blowing snow can initiate ice multiplication in the Alps through the BR mechanism, which is found to elevate the modeled ICNCs up to 3 orders of magnitude, providing a better agreement with in-situ measurements. This highlights the importance of considering both SIP and surface-based processes in weather-prediction and climate models.</p>

scholarly journals A Modeling Case Study of Mixed-Phase Clouds over the Southern Ocean and Tasmania

2010 ◽  
Vol 138 (3) ◽  
pp. 839-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony E. Morrison ◽  
Steven T. Siems ◽  
Michael J. Manton ◽  
Alex Nazarov
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Supercooled Liquid ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Weather Research And Forecasting ◽  
Marine Stratocumulus ◽  
Cloud Structure ◽  
In Situ Observations ◽  
Cloud Tops ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

Abstract The cloud structure associated with two frontal passages over the Southern Ocean and Tasmania is investigated. The first event, during August 2006, is characterized by large quantities of supercooled liquid water and little ice. The second case, during October 2007, is more mixed phase. The Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRFV2.2.1) is evaluated using remote sensed and in situ observations within the post frontal air mass. The Thompson microphysics module is used to describe in-cloud processes, where ice is initiated using the Cooper parameterization at temperatures lower than −8°C or at ice supersaturations greater than 8%. The evaluated cases are then used to numerically investigate the prevalence of supercooled and mixed-phase clouds over Tasmania and the ocean to the west. The simulations produce marine stratocumulus-like clouds with maximum heights of between 3 and 5 km. These are capped by weak temperature and strong moisture inversions. When the inversion is at temperatures warmer than −10°C, WRF produces widespread supercooled cloud fields with little glaciation. This is consistent with the limited in situ observations. When the inversion is at higher altitudes, allowing cooler cloud tops, glaciated (and to a lesser extent mixed phase) clouds are more common. The simulations are further explored to evaluate any orographic signature within the cloud structure over Tasmania. No consistent signature is found between the two cases.

scholarly journals Geometrical and Microphysical Properties of Clouds Formed in the Presence of Dust above the Eastern Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5001
Author(s):  
Eleni Marinou ◽  
Kalliopi Artemis Voudouri ◽  
Ioanna Tsikoudi ◽  
Eleni Drakaki ◽  
Alexandra Tsekeri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Microphysical Properties ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

In this work, collocated lidar–radar observations are used to retrieve the vertical profiles of cloud properties above the Eastern Mediterranean. Measurements were performed in the framework of the PRE-TECT experiment during April 2017 at the Greek atmospheric observatory of Finokalia, Crete. Cloud geometrical and microphysical properties at different altitudes were derived using the Cloudnet target classification algorithm. We found that the variable atmospheric conditions that prevailed above the region during April 2017 resulted in complex cloud structures. Mid-level clouds were observed in 38% of the cases, high or convective clouds in 58% of the cases, and low-level clouds in 2% of the cases. From the observations of cloudy profiles, pure ice phase occurred in 94% of the cases, mixed-phase clouds were observed in 27% of the cases, and liquid clouds were observed in 8.7% of the cases, while Drizzle or rain occurred in 12% of the cases. The significant presence of Mixed-Phase Clouds was observed in all the clouds formed at the top of a dust layer, with three times higher abundance than the mean conditions (26% abundance at −15 °C). The low-level clouds were formed in the presence of sea salt and continental particles with ice abundance below 30%. The derived statistics on clouds’ high-resolution vertical distributions and thermodynamic phase can be combined with Cloudnet cloud products and lidar-retrieved aerosol properties to study aerosol-cloud interactions in this understudied region and evaluate microphysics parameterizations in numerical weather prediction and global climate models.

scholarly journals Secondary ice production processes in wintertime alpine mixed-phase clouds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paraskevi Georgakaki ◽  
Georgia Sotiropoulou ◽  
Étienne Vignon ◽  
Anne-Claire Billault-Roux ◽  
Alexis Berne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Ice Crystals ◽  
Swiss Alps ◽  
Blowing Snow ◽  
Production Processes ◽  
Break Up ◽  
Ice Production ◽  
Cloud Ice ◽  
Droplet Shattering ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

Abstract. Observations of orographic mixed-phase clouds (MPCs) have long shown that measured ice crystal number concentrations (ICNCs) can exceed the concentration of ice nucleating particles by orders of magnitude. Additionally, model simulations of alpine clouds are frequently found to underestimate the amount of ice compared with observations. Surface-based blowing snow, hoar frost and secondary ice production processes have been suggested as potential causes, but their relative importance and persistence remains highly uncertain. Here we study ice production mechanisms in wintertime orographic MPCs observed during the Cloud and Aerosol Characterization Experiment (CLACE) 2014 campaign at the Jungfraujoch site in the Swiss Alps with the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). Simulations suggest that droplet shattering is not a significant source of ice crystals at this specific location – but break-up upon collisions between ice particles is quite active, elevating the predicted ICNCs by up to 3 orders of magnitude, which is consistent with observations. The initiation of the ice-ice collisional break-up mechanism is primarily associated with the occurrence of seeder-feeder events from higher precipitating cloud layers. The enhanced aggregation of snowflakes is found to drive secondary ice formation in the simulated clouds, the role of which is strengthened when the large hydrometeors interact with the primary ice crystals formed in the feeder cloud. Including a constant source of cloud ice crystals from blowing snow, through the action of the break-up mechanism, can episodically enhance ICNCs. Increases in secondary ice fragment generation can be counterbalanced by enhanced orographic precipitation, which seems to prevent explosive multiplication and cloud dissipation. These findings highlight the importance of secondary ice and "seeding" mechanisms – primarily falling ice from above and to a lesser degree blowing ice from the surface – which frequently enhance primary ice and determine the phase state and properties of MPCs.

Constraining Neoproterozoic subtropical low-level clouds to assess the plausibility of near-Snowball Earth states

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Braun ◽  
Aiko Voigt ◽  
Johannes Hörner ◽  
Joaquim G. Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Snowball Earth ◽  
Stable Range ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

<p>Stable waterbelt climate states with close to global ice cover challenge the classical Snowball Earth hypothesis because they provide a robust explanation for the survival of advanced marine species during the Neoproterozoic glaciations (1000 – 541 Million years ago). Whether Earth’s climate stabilizes in a waterbelt state or rushes towards a Snowball state is determined by the magnitude of the ice-albedo feedback in the subtropics, where dark, bare sea ice instead of snow-covered sea ice prevails. For a given bare sea-ice albedo, the subtropical ice-albedo feedback and thus the stable range of the waterbelt climate regime is sensitive to the albedo over ice-free ocean, which is largely determined by shortwave cloud-radiative effects (CRE). In the present-day climate, CRE are known to dominate the spread of climate sensitivity across global climate models. We here study the impact of uncertainty associated with CRE on the existence of geologically relevant waterbelt climate regimes using two global climate models and an idealized energy balance model. We find that the stable range of the waterbelt climate regime is very sensitive to the abundance of subtropical low-level mixed-phase clouds. If subtropical cloud cover is low, climate sensitivity becomes so high as to inhibit stable waterbelt states.</p><p>The treatment of mixed-phase clouds is highly uncertain in global climate models. Therefore we aim to constrain the uncertainty associated with their CRE by means of a hierarchy of global and regional simulations that span horizontal grid resolutions from 160 km to 300m, and in particular include large eddy simulations of subtropical mixed-phase clouds located over a low-latitude ice edge. In the cold waterbelt climate subtropical CRE arise from convective events caused by strong meridional temperature gradients and stratocumulus decks located in areas of large-scale descending motion. We identify the latter to dominate subtropical CRE and therefore focus our large eddy simulations on subtropical stratocumulus clouds. By conducting simulations with two extreme scenarios for the abundance of atmospheric mineral dust, which serves as ice-nucleating particles and therefore can control mixed-phase cloud physics, we aim to estimate the possible spread of CRE associated with subtropical mixed-phase clouds. From this estimate we may assess whether Neoproterozoic low-level cloud abundance may have been high enough to sustain a stable waterbelt climate regime.</p>

Differentiating Freezing Drizzle and Freezing Rain in HRRR Model Forecasts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Tessendorf ◽  
Allyson Rugg ◽  
Alexei Korolev ◽  
Ivan Heckman ◽  
Courtney Weeks ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drop Size ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Water Drop ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Supercooled Liquid ◽  
Drop Diameter ◽  
Aircraft Icing ◽  
Freezing Rain ◽  
Primary Focus

AbstractSupercooled large drop (SLD) icing poses a unique hazard for aircraft and has resulted in new regulations regarding aircraft certification to fly in regions of known or forecast SLD icing conditions. The new regulations define two SLD icing categories based upon the maximum supercooled liquid water drop diameter (Dmax): freezing drizzle (100–500 μm) and freezing rain (> 500 μm). Recent upgrades to U.S. operational numerical weather prediction models lay a foundation to provide more relevant aircraft icing guidance including the potential to predict explicit drop size. The primary focus of this paper is to evaluate a proposed method for estimating the maximum drop size from model forecast data to differentiate freezing drizzle from freezing rain conditions. Using in-situ cloud microphysical measurements collected in icing conditions during two field campaigns between January and March 2017, this study shows that the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh model is capable of distinguishing SLD icing categories of freezing drizzle and freezing rain using a Dmax extracted from the rain category of the microphysics output. It is shown that the extracted Dmax from the model correctly predicted the observed SLD icing category as much as 99% of the time when the HRRR accurately forecast SLD conditions; however, performance varied by the method to define Dmax and by the field campaign dataset used for verification.

scholarly journals Characterization of the cloud microphysical and optical properties and aerosol-cloud interaction in the Arctic from in situ ground-based measurements during the CLIMSLIP-NyA campaign, Svalbard

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwennolé Guyot ◽  
Frans Olofson ◽  
Peter Tunved ◽  
Christophe Gourbeyre ◽  
Guy Fevbre ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Droplet Diameter ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Blowing Snow ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
Arctic Aerosol

Abstract. This study will focus on cloud microphysical and optical characterization of three different types of episodes encountered during the ground based CLIMSLIP-NyA campaign performed in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard: the Mixed Phase Cloud (MPC), snow precipitation and Blowing Snow (BS) events. These in situ cloud measurements will be combined with aerosol measurements and air mass backtrajectory simulations to qualify and parameterize the arctic aerosol cloud interaction and to assess the influence of anthropogenic pollution transported into the Arctic. The results show a cloud bimodal distribution with the droplet mode at 10 µm and the crystal mode centered at 250 µm, for the MPC cases. The precipitation cases presents a crystal distribution centered around 350 µm with mostly of dendritic shape. The BS cases show a higher concentration but smaller crystals, centered between 150 and 200 µm, with mainly irregular crystals. A polluted case, where aerosol properties are influenced by anthropogenic emission from Europe and East Asia, was compared to a clean case with local aerosol sources. These anthropogenic emissions seem to cause higher Black Carbon, aerosol and droplet concentrations, a more pronounced accumulation mode, smaller droplet sizes and a higher activation fraction Fa. Moreover, the activation diameter decreases as the droplet diameter increases and Fa increases showing that smaller particles are activated and droplets grow when the aerosol number decreases. This is in agreement with the first (Twomey) and second (Albrecht) aerosol indirect effect. The quantification of the variations of droplet concentration and size leads to IE (Indirect Effect) and NE (Nucleation Efficiency) coefficients values around 0.2 and 0.43, respectively. These values are close to those found by other studies in the arctic region which confirms these parameterizations of arctic aerosol-cloud interaction in climate models.

scholarly journals Ice Particle Production in Mid-level Stratiform Mixed-phase Clouds Observed with Collocated A-Train Measurements

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damao Zhang ◽  
Zhien Wang ◽  
Pavlos Kollias ◽  
Andrew M. Vogelmann ◽  
Kang Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Particle Production ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Number Concentration ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
Liquid Water Path ◽  
Lidar Measurements ◽  
Dust Events ◽  
Mixed Phase Clouds

Abstract. Collocated CloudSat radar and CALIPSO lidar measurements between 2006 and 2010 are analyzed to study primary ice particle production characteristics in mid-level stratiform mixed-phase clouds on a global scale. For similar clouds in terms of cloud top temperature and liquid water path, Northern Hemisphere latitude bands have layer-maximum radar reflectivity (ZL) that is ~1 to 8 dBZ larger than their counterparts in the Southern Hemisphere. The systematically larger ZL under similar cloud conditions suggests larger ice number concentrations in mid-level stratiform mixed-phase clouds over the Northern Hemisphere, which is possibly related to higher background aerosol loadings. Furthermore, we show that northern mid- and high-latitude springtime has ZL that is larger by up to 8 dBZ (a factor of 6 higher ice number concentration) than other seasons, which might be related to more dust events that provide effective ice nucleating particles. Our study suggests that aerosol-dependent ice number concentration parameterizations are required in climate models to improve mixed-phase cloud simulations, especially over the Northern Hemisphere.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document